


As Good as a Boy

by KannaOphelia



Category: Famous Five - Enid Blyton
Genre: F/F, Femslash, First Time, Gender Issues, Genderqueer, Misses Clause Challenge, Nostalgia, POV Female Character, Post-Canon, Romance, Yuletide, Yuletide 2012, saffic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-18
Updated: 2012-12-18
Packaged: 2017-11-21 11:15:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/597092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KannaOphelia/pseuds/KannaOphelia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's one thing to be a girl who always wants to be a boy, when you're eleven and going on splendid adventures. When you're starting to grow up, the adventures become a bit more complicated, but possibly even more exciting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As Good as a Boy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rumpleghost (softlyforgotten)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/softlyforgotten/gifts).



**1949, London**

"Oh, hoop-la!" Mary clapped her hands. "Shall we?"

I grinned down at her. I was feeling particularly good-humoured; more than that, excited. I love fun fairs, with the music and crowds, the fire eaters and the rides. I'd had some of my most exciting adventures at fairgrounds. I felt like a kid again, not a grownup who had said goodbye to Gaylands School quite a fortnight ago, and was looking at a grownup world and responsibilities. Lucky Anne, to have one year left at school before facing having to be grownup and responsible, although of course she would be terribly responsible and serious in Sixth Form. That was something I never quite managed, myself.

The only thing missing to complete my enjoyment was the company of my cousins. Perhaps that's why I'd brought Mary with me tonight, I told myself. Something about the way her golden hair curled up a little at the edges and her smile reminded me of Anne. 

"If you like." I allowed her to tug me by the hand toward the stall, whistling for Timmy as we went.

"I want you to win me something, George." Mary tossed her hair, looking awfully pretty in the light. "I'm simply longing for one of those teddy bears.

"I'll give it a shot." I whistled again. "Where is that dog? Hie, Tim!"

"He'll be fine," Mary said easily. "Come on - that little one there, with the sweet smile."

"In a moment. It's not like Timothy to wander off on his own." I frowned, scanning the crowd. A lot of people, and a lot of crannies where an elderly dog could become confused and wander off. There was a display of wild animals, too. "Timmy!"

Mary's smile had completely faded. "Really, George, I don't know why you had to bring that old mongrel anyway."

I stared blankly down at her. She was not really quite as pretty as I had thought at first, and not very much like Anne at all. Her lips, pressed tightly together, formed a thin line. I've always thought that people with thin lips were petty and spiteful. I really didn't know why I'd thought she was such a ripping girl, at first. "I can't leave him on his own," I said, as patiently as I could manage. "He's old, and anything could happen to him."

"Don't scowl like that, you look like thunder. You really are such a strange boy." Mary tugged at my arm again, and then sudden dissolved into one of her sweet smiles. "Please, pretty please?" she said in a silly, wheedling voice. She reached up and cupped my chin, startling me. "If you win me that little bear, I might even let you kiss me."

Thoughts of old Timmy disloyally flew from my head. All I could see was Mary, her mouth slightly sticky with cherry red lipstick and not looking thin at all now she'd relaxed it into a seductive smile, and wonder what the lipstick would feel like against my own lips. If it would stain my mouth. What it would feel like to wrap my arms around her waist, winding under her coat to feel the softness of her cardigan and whether I could feel the warmth of her flesh through it. Surely I could. My eyes flicked briefly to her chest, and I wondered if the binding around my own would prevent me from feeling the soft swelling there against me.

I felt slightly sick for a moment, with panic and something else I didn't quite understand. After all, wasn't this exactly what I'd secretly wanted? To be brutal about it, I'd picked up a girl at Madame Tussaud's, who took me at the merit of my trousers and cropped hair and carefully restrained bosom and the fact that I had said my Christian name was George, which was not, strictly speaking, entirely true. I had spent the afternoon pushing aside barely-acknowledged wondering if, when I took her home, she'd want to be kissed goodnight. After all, it's not like I'd ever see her again, after tonight. One kiss, on the cheek, wouldn't hurt.

It was too sudden, and too soon, and I didn't quite know how to understand the sudden rush of feeling toward this girl - who could be any girl, after all. I didn't know a thing about her, really. Just a pretty girl on my arm at a funfair. All I knew is that she wasn't really the kind of girl I usually made friends with, and that she had soft powdered skin and red lips that she was raising to me, and that she smelled softly feminine, of foundation cream and face powder and flowery cologne.

I could feel heat creeping up over my face and suspected I looked ridiculously red and flustered, even under the evening lights. Mary was laughing up at me, enjoying what she supposed was my bashfulness, and I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me.

At that inopportune moment I heard a sharp and somehow familiar whistle. I turned my head to see, of all things, a girl of about my own age with a snake wound around her body and over her shoulder and her hand on the head of a dog trotting beside her and looking very pleased with himself. _My_ dog. All of a sudden the last shreds of any pretence of being grownup fell from me, and I was back at the beach dealing with an annoying ragamuffin boy who stole my hole and the affections of my dog and I was itching to fight him to prove I was as good of a boy as he was and... well, my cousins never let me forget that joke. It was frightfully funny to them, if not at all to me.

She didn't look like a boy now. Not like a proper girl, either, not in the same way as Mary, but she was wearing a grubby skirt, as if she was still just a tomboy kid who didn't care much what she looked like. I found myself feeling terribly overdressed and somehow exposed in my lovely well-cut trousers and jacket. Exposed doing something both wicked and ridiculous.

"George Kirrin! Fancy seeing you here." Listening to the familiar, sing-song teasing tones, I was suddenly, instantly sure that Jo had overheard Mary and instantly understood what was going on. "I seem to have found your dog. Or he found me."

I turn to Timothy in relief. "Timmy, darling!" I reached out to him, and he came, but not without depositing a loving kiss on Jo's hand. It's disgraceful, the way he fawns over her. "Naughty boy, to run away!"

Timmy woofed repentantly, thudding his tail at me, and then went straight back to Jo for caresses.

"Aren't you going to introduce me to your... friend?" Mary's voice was cold, and her gaze, as it swept over Jo, looking as unkempt as ever in an ill-fitting blouse and messy hair and with that ridiculous snake wound about her, was disapproving to the point of being absolutely rude. I felt a wave of dislike come over me - for Mary, who wasn't in the least like Anne, and for Jo, with her mocking expression, and - well, not for Timmy. I could never dislike Timmy. But why did he have to run to a horror like Jo in that disloyal way?

"This is Jo," I said, hearing the gruffness of embarrassment in my voice, and feeling ashamed of it. It was not, I told myself, that I was ashamed of acknowledging the acquaintance of a scruffy fairground girl. I'm not a snob, honestly. I just wished she was a little more careful to keep herself neat and tidy. "She's - my childhood friend." I owed her that much of an acknowledgement, after all. I owe her more than that, really. My life, to be honest, maybe more than once. Jo might always turn up at the least fortuitous moments, but on the other hand she also always turns up at exactly the right moment when she's really needed. 

"Really?" The disdain in Mary's voice made me wince. "How nice. Now, you have your dog back, so shall we go and look at the rides?"

"I thought you wanted to play hoop-la," I said weakly.

"Oh. I thought there might be a better atmosphere away from here," Mary said, very sweetly. She linked her arm with mine, and started to pull me away.

I resisted a little, enough to glance back over my shoulder. I was angry and irrationally upset with Jo, but this didn't seem quite right. After all, Jo was perfectly splendid at heart, always such a plucky, loyal little thing. So what if there were stains on her blouse and she appeared to have forgotten her coat despite the coolness of the night? "Jo, do you want to ride?"

Her grin nearly split her face. "Don't mind if I do. I can even get you on for free."

Mary looked from one of the other to us, slowly, her lips pursed. "I'm sorry, George, I've changed my mind. I really have the most dreadful headache. I think perhaps I should go home."

"I'll walk -" I began, awkwardly, but she pulled away.

"Oh, I'll be fine. It's not far. And I'm sure you can find company better suited to your tastes." With another toss of her golden hair, she was gone into the crowd.

Jo watched her dispassionately. "I didn't like her much. I think you should choose a nicer friend."

I turned on her. "What business is it of yours?"

"None." Jo twinkled at me - her eyes actually twinkled, like the fairground lights. "Does she know -"

"Shut up," I snapped, and instantly repented of my rudeness. "Jo... you wouldn't tell anyone...."

She reached up and fearlessly caressed the head of the snake. "It's hardly my business what a fine gentleman like you does, is it?"

"Jo!" I said, imploringly.

She laughed. "Oh, I can keep a secret. So can you, I hope." The snake flickered its tongue at me, rudely, and I felt like for two pins Jo would do the same. I wouldn't have put it past her, even though surely she was quite as old as me. "Will you walk me home, Master Kirrin? Just as soon as I return this beauty." That malicious twinkle again. "Auntie thinks I'm at the cinema with friends. It's about time that I went home, and a nice girl like me can hardly walk the streets at night by myself, can I? She'll feel much better if a nice gentleman friend keeps me safe."

I made an effort not to scowl at the teasing and tried to take my revenge with more subtlety. "Your foster mother lets you go to the cinema dressed like that?"

She looked down at her outfit, and laughed again. Jo always was a one to laugh. "I should go get changed. Wait here."

I bristled a little about being ordered around, but I was determined not to be sulky. Jo was all right, really. I had Timmy back. And Mary's departure had left a certain amount of relief in its place. Somehow, with Jo around, I felt entirely like a kid again, and no one, except perhaps me, had to take the way I chose to dress seriously if I was a kid. I might get teased for wearing shorts and a jersey at the seashore, nothing worse. I actually hummed to myself as I bought Timmy an ice to make up for losing track of him.

When Jo reappeared, she was wearing quite a pretty dress. I'm not very good at these things, but even I could tell that it wasn't really the sort of thing Anne wears and was probably homemade. It was nice anyway, with little red flowers and a matching coat. It was clean, too, and she'd removed the smudges from her cheeks and tamed her curls with a comb. She looked almost pretty, really, in her gypsy way. As we set off, I even felt the return of the small, secret tingle of pride I had felt with Mary on my arm. I pushed it down firmly. Jo knew perfectly well what my real name was.

"Why does your foster mother think you're at the cinema?" It had been bothering me a little. Jo always seemed to be hanging around fairgrounds and circuses and to know everyone who worked there. I had never known it to be a problem.

Jo shrugged, staring straight ahead. I wondered if I was imagining a slight stiffness around her shoulders. "Suddenly packed up and moved to London without telling anyone where we were going, didn't she, and told me off not to go here. She never cared much before. I reckon it means Dad's getting out soon."

"Are you going to look for him?" I asked awkwardly.

"Dunno. Aunty's never so much as cuffed me, even once. It's much better with her. Dad'll probably turn up sniffing around, once he finds out I have a good job as a nippy. I don't owe him anything, and he wasn’t really happy with me when he was put away, but he _is_ my Dad. Maybe I shouldn't have gone to the fair after all. But - I wanted to come."

I looked carefully at her in the dimness. She was staring very hard into the distance in a way I recognised as trying hard not to cry. It was a shame, I thought with sudden fierceness. Jo looked made for cheerfulness, with her turned-up nose and curls.

"It was nice of you," she said suddenly, "to say I was your friend in front of that girl."

"You _are_ my friend," I said, my pity adding warmth to my voice. "We told you we'd be your friends for ever, remember?"

"You said I was as good as a boy." Any sign of tears had gone, if there had been any in the first place, and she was giving me a lopsided grin again. "Funny, when you think about it."

My cheeks heated. "About that..."

"None of my business, I told you," Jo said airily. "But I didn't like her."

"I don't think I liked her much, either," I admitted. We walked in silence for a while. It was astonishing how much safer I felt on the streets of London, knowing people would look at me and see a young man with his girl, not two girls out alone together with only an old dog for protection. Unfair, that. Although I supposed that Jo would be fearless alone in a skirt, without even Timmy.

"What are you doing in London?" Jo asked suddenly. "Are the others here?"

"Buying clothes," I said shortly, wondering if she was trying to find out if Dick was around. So she could lick his boots, Julian would say.

"Clothes. _Ohhh..._ " She took in my trousers and jacket, meaningfully, and I punched her arm lightly.

"Not like that. I'm reading physics at University College in St Andrew’s this year. Like father, like daughter, I suppose." It slipped out before I thought, and I cursed myself. Jo didn't say anything, though, and I rushed on. "For some reason, Mother doesn't think any of my holiday clothes are quite suitable. She was going to come with me to choose them, but she caught a bad cold. So I came up by train this afternoon, and Anne is coming up tomorrow morning to help me pick out some outfits. For some reason, Mother doesn't trust me to choose clothes by myself."

Jo laughed, her little monkey face twisted with glee. "I see." She was tactful enough not to say anything more. "And that girl?"

I bit my lip. "I was wasting time at Madame Tussaud's, and I suppose we kind of struck up a friendship. It doesn't matter. I'd rather walk home with you."

Jo didn't ask any more. It was very nice of her, I thought.

"Do you get a break at the Corner House?" I asked, suddenly.

"Half two, after the lunch rush."

"Why don't you let us treat you to tea? Anne'd like to see you again, I know."

Jo's face nearly split in two. "I'd love it, I’m at the Strand. And here, I'm home. Better sneak in before Aunty knows I went out."

"I thought you said she thought you were at the cinema?"

She lifted her thin shoulders and dropped them. "If you'd walked that girl home," she said irrelevantly, in her sing-song voice, "I bet she would have expected you to kiss her goodnight. She's the kind of girl who would always kiss a young man she's just met goodnight."

I scowled. I never did get the hang of teasing. 

Jo turned toward me and put her hands on my shoulders. She wasn't pretty, not at all, and there was no foundation cream and powder on a face as brown and freckled as it was when she was a scallywag of thirteen, but there was something piquant and charming about her expression. In her own odd way, I suddenly and reluctantly realised, she was as attractive as Mary.

"I suppose you don't want to kiss _me_ goodnight?" She batted her lashes at me, in ludicrous imitation of Mary's coquettishness. "I shan't mind. It wouldn't be the first time you kissed me, after all."

I pulled away, furious, and she grinned at me. "So long, George. See you tomorrow."

The door banged behind her, and I started home with Timmy, fuming, my temper worse when he whined and scratched at the door as if wondering why his beloved Jo had shut him out, forcing me to whistle for him. 

Horrid, ugly monkey of a scamp. It was too bad of her to rake up that old affair when we were just kids. I regretted ever having invited her to meet up with Anne. The less I saw of Miss Jo, the better.

#  
 **1944, Devon**

The door pushed open, and I looked up in fright, expecting to see Red or some of his men. Instead, I saw a much younger, and more welcome, head with wiry, tangled curls peep cautiously around the edge of the door.

"Psssst!" She seemed to be having the time of her life. "I've come to get you out!"

"Jo! It can't really be you." I stared disbelievingly at the little ragamuffin from the beach, the same girl I had been so thoroughly unpleasant to because she had stolen my place and Dick's attention and had made Timmy fawn on her.

"It is. Feel," Jo said, and pattered across to me, the door closing softly behind her. The pinch she gave me on the arm was not nearly so soft.

To my dismay and shame, I promptly burst into tears.

"What's wrong?" Jo asked in astonishment. "I didn't pinch you that hard, did I? Look, it won't even bruise. Not like these." She displayed with what seemed like pride two bruises on her face, and pulled up her shorts to show an entirely dreadful one on her leg. "There's no need to cry like a baby."

"That's not it," I gulped. "I was just all alone, and... I never cry."

Jo sat beside me near the window. "Course you do. Everyone does. I cry all right when Dad knocks me about."

"Boys don't."

Jo shrugged. "I reckon they would, if they were kidnapped and shut up here all alone and didn't know if they could get out. Even -" she seemed to make a supreme effort - "even Dick would. A bit."

"If I was as good as a boy, I wouldn't cry," I said, mulishly.

There was a moment's silence, then Jo wrapped her skinny little arms around me and pressed her face to mine, with the same instinctive urge to comfort Timmy would show when I was upset and he would lean against me and lick my face. She leaned silently against me, offering comfort.

It was cool, and my tears were cold against my face. Jo's cheek pushed against them was soft and warm. Without thinking, I turned toward it, and kissed her mouth. It was a soppy, schoolgirlish thing to do, but somehow it made me feel better. Her lips were very soft, and she returned the kiss with something like affection, for all I'd been so horrid to her before. I could feel peace seeping into me from the arms around my neck and the friendly mouth against mine.

I pulled away, still more ashamed for having given into my girlishness. Jo patted my back. "Dry up, now, George. We have to get you out." She hauled me to my feet, and I scrubbed at my face with my sleeve.

After the adventure, I never mentioned either my tears or my kiss, either to Jo or to the boys. Neither did she. It was kinder, I suppose, not to mention my embarrassing descent into girlishness. Neither Dick nor Julian would cling and cry and need kisses and comforting over a silly thing like being locked up alone for a while. 

It made me feel that I would never, ever be as good as a boy. And that was something not to dwell on.

#  
 **1949**

Clothes shopping was not nearly as painful as I feared it would be. Anne made no attempt to steer me toward frills and pink, selecting well-tailored and plain clothes. Mother had chosen well when she decided to trust Anne to choose for me. Anne always did have excellent taste, and she clearly enjoyed picking out things that would suit. She should, I thought, design dresses or something when she left school, the last of the Five to grow up. 

I knew she was intending to do a secretarial course or something to fill in time until she met someone nice and got married. In a way, it seemed like a pity. She would be a wonderful wife and mother, certainly. Anne had always been something special; in the Five she was always the baby of the group, but all the other girls at school looked up to her immensely. She was so kind-hearted and so efficient at the same time -- probably from all her experience managing her brothers and myself over the years and all the adventures. I hoped she would meet someone who appreciated and deserved her.

Eventually, we left to be sent home more parcels than I could possibly believe one person could want in a single term, but which Anne assured me were all entirely necessary, and picked up Timmy on the way to meet Jo at the Corner House.

She was standing outside, rising up on tiptoes and looking anxiously around. She looked smart in her uniform, I was glad to notice, and her cuffs were crisp and clean, as were her curls. I'd worried that Jo would look entirely wrong and out of place next to Anne, who looked daintily immaculate in blue, and I was relieved that, although she was wearing working clothes, she was well groomed and tidy.

Anne went straight up to her and hugged and kissed her. "Hallo, Jo dear."

Jo beamed back at her. "Hallo, Anne. I thought you weren't coming. You're late." The last was directed accusingly at me.

"Clothes shopping takes longer than you'd think!" I protested, and Jo grinned at me. It was a relief. I might be feeling a little awkward after the night before, but Jo obviously had no such delicacy. I needed to learn not to take teasing so seriously. Chaffing and teasing seemed to come so naturally to everyone else. I suppose it was that I never had brothers and sisters of my own, nor any childhood friends, really, until I met my cousins, so I never had the chance to learn until it was too late.

We found a teashop nearby with indulgent waitresses that didn't mind a well-behaved old dog and ordered buns and tea, just like Anne and I were on an outing to the village at school with a school friend. Jo was at her brightest and most talkative, pelting Anne with questions about her brothers and about school, eating with unabashed appetite more iced buns than you would think one fairly small girl could fit inside herself while sneaking little bits to Timmy, and saying nothing much about herself.

"Dick is reading engineering this year," Anne said proudly, "and Julian is going to take the bar, eventually. How about you? Do you like where you work?" That's typical of Anne, to show no awareness of any difference between our lives and Jo's, and to be genuinely interested in what she's doing.

"It's all right," Jo said vaguely. "I liked the countryside better. What about you?"

"Anne was chosen Head Girl of our school this year," I said, showing my own pride.

"So you get to boss all the other girls around instead of just us?" Jo demanded.

"Something like that," Anne said, and giggled.

She excused herself to go to the powder room, and I was left alone with Jo, something I had secretly hoped to avoid. I looked warily across at her, wondering what she would say. She's always a little like a firecracker waiting to go off.

She was watching the direction in which Anne had departed, somewhat wistfully, like Timmy when he's finished his ice and you still have some in your hand.

"She's so pretty," she said.

"Yes, she is."

"Would you like me better if I was as pretty as her?" Jo demanded, suddenly.

"I like you a lot!" I said. I supposed, as soon as I said it, that I should have told her she was pretty too, even if that wasn't quite true, but I liked her freckled face and her snub nose. I didn't really know how to tell her that without sounding insulting, though. 

Jo seemed pleased enough with my answer. She stopped looking after Anne turned back to me. In fact, she openly stared where no one with any manners or upbringing at all would stare at all, let alone in a teashop. "You're a different shape today," she said, bluntly. "Why?"

I would have given anything to sink into the ground. "I used bandages, yesterday, wound around me, to sort of... squash everything flat. Jo, please don't tell Anne."

She shook her curls. "I don't ever split, you know that. I just wondered."

To my relief, she dropped the subject. I didn't want to be talking about bandages when Anne came back. Instead, we talked about Timmy, who had been deeply unhappy at being left at the guest house while I went shopping, and what clothes we would buy him if he could wear clothes, and what we would order him for tea and if he would eat on the floor or up on a chair. We were both laughing when Anne returned, and the rest of the meal was relaxed and jolly, with no awkward questions.

Afterwards, Anne exclaimed at the time, kissed us hurriedly goodbye, and vanished into a taxi to catch her train. I watched the departing cab disconsolately. 

Jo watched me, with her head on one side. "You're not going with her?"

"No. I'll catch my train back to Devon tomorrow. She's spending the start of the hols with a friend from school in Sussex; Dick and Julian are visiting pals of theirs, too. Perhaps we'll meet up later in the hols." I felt abruptly miserable. Of course, Anne and the others aren't actually my siblings. It made sense that now that Julian was grown up, and Dick and I practically, we'd not spend every holiday together, having adventures, like the old days. Julian didn't seem interested in adventures nowadays anyway, although he was always very kind. It was simply that I'd grown to expect that, when I wasn't at school, Timmy and I would be with them. I hadn't been alone all the time since I was a waif of ten.

"Then you can take me out tonight," Jo said. "I need to go to the cinema so that if Aunty asks where I've been when I go to the fair tomorrow, I'll be able to tell her all about it."

"You're awful, Jo," I told her, sternly.

She twinkled at me unrepentantly. "You don't have to wear a skirt, you know. Aunty would be so happy at me walking out with a young man with your accent and clothes."

"Jo!"

"Why not? It's one night. And you don't have to worry about me finding out about your secret, because I already know. It will be fun. Deal?"

I looked across at her, at her vivacious brown face, with its combination of mischief and acceptance, and fell. After all, one night. I could trust Jo. What harm could come of taking her out to dinner and a film, and delivering her safely home?  
  
#  
  
In the end, it was Jo who kissed me.

I hadn't really been watching the film anyway, too light-headed with the odd exhilaration of the evening. I had lashed out for a meal at a good hotel, Jo enjoying the treat with unselfconscious greediness, and I had looked around at the other people and realised that all they saw was a young man, dressed to the nines, treating his girl to a nice meal. Jo wasn't precisely good looking or well dressed, but she was in another pretty frock, and she looked happy and glowing and ten times as real as half the carefully made-up, fashionable girls picking at their meals in the dining room. I had felt oddly proud to be with her.

No one, no one at all, looked at me and showed any sign they realised I was really called Georgina. I had never felt much like Georgina, and I felt less like her than ever, sitting in the darkness with Jo.

At some point in the film, Jo nudged me hard in the side, and when I turned away from the screen, she took my face in one hand and kissed me full on the lips. It was nothing like the tear-stained kiss when we were kids, but soft and terribly grownup at the same time, and something in me pulled and melted like it had looking at Mary in the fairgrounds, only a hundred times worse.

My back stiffened, and she drew back.

"Do you not want to kiss me because I'm not as pretty as that girl?" she whispered.

"Don't be silly."

"You don't like me enough?"

"That's not it," I said, realising it was the truth. "Jo, you know..."

I could see her teeth flash in the light from the screen. "You're a handsome young man out with your best girl. Just for tonight. And the whole reason to take a girl to the back row is for a cuddle in the darkness, right? Or were you leading me on?"

"Have you done this often?" I asked, sharply, and surprised at the sting of bitterness in my heart at the thought of Jo with various boys pawing at her. She seemed such a hard, worldly little thing sometimes, but that was no reason to take advantage of her.

"Never before now. Boys seem to think I'm too much like a boy myself, but then, they've never met you." I was sure that her eyes were dancing. "It's just one night, George. Just playing, for one night. Are you going to kiss me?"

"Just for tonight," I heard myself whispering, and kissed her. Her lips parted, and clung to mine, and her arms went around my neck and I didn't hear or see much of the film after that. All I was aware of was warm softness leaning against me, the firmness of her thigh under my hands, and those lips pressing and pulling at mine. For one bewildering, delicious moment her tongue moved past her lips and into my own mouth, and I thought I was in danger of fainting.

When the lights came back on we jerked apart, suddenly exposed and awkward, and aware of the amused or disgusted glances of the few other people in the theatre. Not an uncommon sight, after all. A young man and his girl, snatching a few moment's’ intimacy in the darkness. Just for one night.

Jo slipped her hand into mine as we went out. I felt dizzy and delirious and unsure of myself, but I held on to her hand for all I was worth.

"It's late," she said. "I think you'd better be a gentleman and walk me home again."

I didn't know if I felt grateful or disappointed that the fantasy of the evening was ending. I was in a daze. I didn't even register most of what we walked past, just the slightly sweaty feel of Jo's hand clutched in mine.

When we reached her house, she said, "You'll have to give me a boost so I can get up the drainpipe to the bedroom window."

I stared blankly at her. "Isn't this your house?"

"Of course it is. Only Aunty always locks the door when she goes out, and she thinks I'm sick in bed with a headache," she said, serenely. "If I'm too heavy for you, I can get back in without your help, only this is my best dress and I hate mending."

"You little scamp!" I said, helplessly, and she snorted with laughter.

"Don't act so high-and-mighty, George Kirrin. Come on, I'll let you in and make you a cup of tea. I don't," she said, looking at me suddenly sidelong in a way that made me tremble, "want tonight to be quite over just yet."

I boosted her up without a word, watching her squirm up the drainpipe like a monkey, half admiring and half despairing. Such a girl. And I despaired of myself, too. What exactly was Jo doing -- and even worse, what was I doing? I should go straight back to the guest house and escape this incredibly odd situation before it became even stranger. Instead, I stood on the doorstep and waited.

Once the door was open,. Jo didn't make any pretence of taking me into the kitchen and making me tea. We were still in the hall when she flung herself into my arms, and before I knew what was happening my mouth was on hers and her fingers winding in my curls.

Somehow we made it upstairs. Into her bedroom. I knew perfectly well I shouldn't be going into her bedroom. Of course, Georgina Kirrin had shared a dormitory with five other girls and a bedroom with her cousin Anne for years, but this wasn't Georgina Kirrin, it was some strange, dashing creature in trousers and jacket who might do anything and who should not be alone with a girl in her bedroom. Somehow, though, the door was closed behind us and Jo was pressed between me and the wall before I was aware of pushing her there, clinging to me and kissing, kissing. I tried to pull away for one moment, but her tongue was suddenly in my mouth again, and I could hear myself making soft sounds against it, and the moment of protest was lost.

I slid one hand up under her blouse, and she shuddered at the touch of my hand against my skin. I pulled away.

"I'm sorry."

"No, wait." Jo reached up and unbuttoned her blouse. Her skin was much paler, where her undergarments left her bare, than the sub-browned skin of her face, and looked incredibly soft and delicate. I blushed to look at her. "Here." She took my hand again, and placed it on one breast. "There, George. Touch as much as you like."

I stared at her. My hand wanted to squeeze, to tighten, to slip inside the fabric and find the peak where the softness became harder. But I could see, somehow, clearly, what we would look like from the outside. A boy taking advantage of a girl, not enough of a gentleman to wait until they were married first, just out to get what he could from her, pressed against a wall like... like... I had always despised and been horrified by men like that. And it was worse than that, really. A boy from a good school and family, with a future in front of him, taking advantage of an uneducated girl living in a shabby little terrace house, working as a Lyon’s Nippy and with a father in prison.

"Jo..."

"I want you to." Jo was soft and breathless. "Just be my boy for me, just for tonight, before you go."

I hesitated, wanting to say so many things. "I always liked you so much, do you know that? Not just at first, but... I do truly like you so much, Jo."

"I always liked you too, George. I know I'm not your kind of girl, but I want to be the one you look at and touch. Now."

I let myself pull back the fabric, and touch the dark pink-brown swelling at the peak of the soft white curve. Jo made a sharp noise in her throat and was kissing me again, kissing me as I caressed and rubbed and even pulled, hungry for the feel of her. One of her legs wound around one of mine, and to my giddy fascination she began to push herself frantically against my thigh, rubbing herself against it. I was partly bewildered, but partly understood. There were wild, strange feelings gathering in me, too, in the same part of myself she was thrusting against me, a partly understood, desperate need for relief.

She stopped her movements, suddenly. "It's not enough. George... touch me there." It was a peremptory order that I was in no position to resent.

"There?" I was almost certain of what she wanted, but suddenly shy and confused. It would be terrible if I was wrong. "You're certain?"

"Under my skirt. Don't you ever touch yourself there, alone at night?" She was breathless, but there was some amusement left behind it, too.

"No." I felt rather awkward. "You see, I sleep in a dorm, or with Anne. I'm not really ever alone at night."

"Oh, you poor little rich kid. I'll have to teach you." She was laughing at me, although her breasts were heaving with the effort of finding breath and her cheeks were flushed. "Wait." She pushed me slightly aside and put her hands up under her skirt. I watched, petrified like one of her charmed snakes, as she wriggled a bit and her lower undergarments fell to her knees. She hooked one leg out and kicked them aside. "Now. Please touch me..." She took my hand and pushed it up under her skirt, against warmth. "There. Wet your fingertip, just here." She pressed my finger against a spot that was wetter than the rest, a part that gave slightly against my finger, then pulled it higher. "Now, there. Rub me there. Now, George..."

My fingers moved as if of their own accord, pressing and rubbing where she had shown me. My vision was full of her, as she slumped against the wall, one leg winding around mine again, her eyes closed, and her head moving helplessly from side to side as little noises came from her lips, her exposed breast naked and perfect. How could I ever have thought Jo was ugly? She was beautiful. I was enthralled by what some tiny movements could do to her, the complete abandon in the trembling gasps she was making. I could hear my own breath shuddering out, as if I could feel some of what she was feeling, and I rained little kisses on the tense line of her neck, as if I could eat her up with my lips. 

I was aware of a terrible feeling of possessiveness rising in me as she became more frantic. The vision came back into my head, of a boy taking a girl against the wall. Not like this, though... On a sudden irresistible impulse, I slid my fingers down from where it was caressing her, and pressed again where it had been wetter. Pressed deeper, until two fingers thrust inside her and she cried out.

"Did I hurt you, Jo?" I asked in alarm.

"A bit. Oh, don't stop," she said hurriedly, as I started to remove my hand. She held it tightly. "Don't stop." She thrust her hips, suddenly, pushing my fingers deeper inside her, and cried out softly.

I wrapped my free arm around her tightly, supporting her weight, and matched my movements to hers. I felt like I was in some strange heated dream, feeling tight warmth pulsating around my fingers, the girl in my arms pushing and thrusting against me, driving my fingers into her.

"Touch me again!" she ordered suddenly, and I slipped my fingers from her and found the place from before. "More!" I worked the spot faster and harder, until she flung her head back against the wall with an audible crack and made a strangled gasping noise like a smothered scream. 

"Oh, George!" Jo started to laugh again, breathlessly, and took my hand once more, gently this time, steering it away from under her skirt and around her waist. She leaned her head against my shoulder and rubbed her face against it, an oddly kittenish gesture of affection. I felt a fierce protectiveness in response, and I pulled her gently to the bed, settling her down on the side and sitting beside her, pulling her curly head back on my shoulder and cuddling her close.

"I didn't hurt you, dear?" I asked again, barely noticing the endearment slip out.

"At first. But it was -- oh, it felt nothing like when I do it myself. Nothing at all. It was amazing." She lifted her head and kissed me again. I was startled to notice tears on her cheek, and hoped that I hadn't hurt her more than she was admitting. "But what about you, George?"

I flinched. "You know I'm not really -- well, you know what I am."

She kissed the tip of my nose. "You're George, the girl who wanted to be as good as a boy, who promised to be my friend for ever. So now you can stop being my boy and be my girl, for a bit. If that's okay?" Her eyes were suddenly wide and anxious, as if she feared being reproved for saying the wrong thing.

Through all my tumult of desire and confusion, I felt a sudden fear. I couldn't imagine being like Jo had, against the wall and open and abandoned. "I don't know."

"Let me try." She slipped her hands up and began to unbutton my shirt. "Come on, George. I always thought you were the bravest of all."

"Not nearly as plucky as you," I said, sincerely, and she flashed me a smile that made me almost not notice when my shirt was off. 

"Can I?" She brushed her hands against the bandages that were keeping me as flat as I could manage, finding the pins holding them tight.

I bit my lip. "Okay," I said, trying to be as brave as she thought me. 

She unpinned and loosened the bandages, very carefully, so that they fell around my waist. My breasts were slightly reddened and swollen from the pressure. Jo touched them, and I shuddered.

"Do they hurt, like that?" she asked, with frank interest.

"Not at the time. They feel a bit tender, now."

"Poor George!" She bent her head and kissed one, and I jerked in response, fire going through me. "That's nice?" She suddenly seemed shy, herself.

"Yes," I hissed.

"Good." She kissed me there again, more wetly, her mouth open and her tongue against the tip of my breast, and somehow I had fallen back on the bed, Jo lying half on top of me as her mouth worked against my breast, kissing and sucking avidly. There were noises coming out of my mouth that I wasn't conscious of making, that I didn't know I could make at all.

Jo sat up suddenly. "Take off your trousers."

I decided that, as I had obviously decided, or my body had, to give in to anything Jo wanted, I obediently unfastened them somehow and lifted my hips, wriggling them off as best I could while lying with my legs dangling off the bed. Jo sat beside me, grinning down.

"What?" I asked, defensively.

"Dunno. It's just nice being able to tell a girl like you what to do."

I opened my mouth to protest, but she pounced, and by the time the kiss had finished Jo had somehow managed to pull down my undergarments as well and I had forgotten what I meant to say in the shock of being uncovered.

"Good George," she said, in a way that managed to warm me even through everything else I was feeling, and she slipped to the floor between my legs.

"What are you doing?" I asked, half alarmed.

"I just wanted to see what you look like. I've tried looking at myself, but the mirror is fixed to the wall and I couldn't get the angle right," she said, matter-of-factly. 

I blushed. "Jo," I protested.

She giggled and kissed me. Right between my legs. There was a moment of shock, and then my hips jerked up. She lifted her head.

"That felt nice?"

I couldn't speak.

"Yes, then." She bent her head, and kissed me there again, open-mouthed and wet, her tongue moving against me. My hips bucked, and she put her hands on them to hold them still, running her tongue against me. "Brave girl." Her lips fastened on the spot she had told me to rub on her, and I think I went a little crazy. There was nothing in the world but Jo's mouth kissing and sucking, until all the tension I was feeling built up and grew tight and then suddenly, in a rush, escaped, and I felt exhausted and limp and tingling.

Jo seemed to sense that I'd been overwhelmed. She slipped back onto the bed and I pulled her close, kissing the top of her head. There was an odd pulsing deep inside of me, like a second heart, and it made me shiver a little. My own heart was beating fast, and I could feel Jo's beating against me.

"I guess you have to go, now." She sounded forlorn. "It was just for tonight. And you have a train to catch in the morning."

"I do." My arms tightened around her. I didn't want to let her go. All I could think of was all the times I had been frightened, and alone, and this plucky little girl had moved heaven and earth to save me. The way she had risked being beaten to a pulp by her beast of a father for me, who had been so unkind to her. How affectionate and difficult and utterly sweet she was. And now... We had done things together that I had never really imagined doing, with anyone, ever. A great and terrible secret. How could I just get dressed and go and not know when I'd see her again?

"Darling Jo," I said. "Do you really like me best?" I looked at her, suddenly anxious, wondering if she would have done this with Dick... if she would have preferred doing this with Dick. A real boy, not a girl in bandages with no real idea of what she was doing.

"I reckon I always loved you best of all. Well, not always. Once I got to know you better and you stopped being so mean."

I brushed her curls with my hand, thinking of the word. Love. There had been little enough of that in Jo's life after her mother died, I supposed. Joan's cousin, presumably, loved her, but it wouldn't have been the same. So she spent the love in her fierce little heart on four children she barely saw, who were their own group. Five, but the fifth was a dog.

"I won't be mean to you ever again. I love you too," I said. It felt like saying the words was both a serious decision and a promise, but perhaps the decision had been made long ago, when we were kids and she had come when I despaired of all hope, and I was simply sealing it with the promise. "I'll love you best of all, for always, if you want me, Jo."

Jo clutched me tight and didn't say anything. I lay there, holding her, my mind racing. I thought of how lonely I was, without my cousins. How much I hated the thought of living in residence with a lot of strange people who wouldn't understand or accept me or know quite what to do with me. Not like this girl, who never acted like anything mattered.

"Come with me to Scotland," I said.

Jo sat up. She was beautiful after all, I decided, with her unbuttoned blouse and tousled hair. "George, Aunty couldn't send me to school much, and I couldn't even read until she taught me. I still can't, not like you."

"There are cafes and tearooms in Dundee. You could find a waitressing job. And you could help look after Timmy. Mother will let me board nearby instead of taking up residence if I really want to -- oh, Jo, please do. I want you." I grabbed her hands. "Your foster mother would let you, I'm sure. And your father would never think to look for you there. Your foster mother would be able to go back to her little village and know you're looked after."

"You want me like what?" she asked, slowly. "Two girls sharing a room? Or, like, a boy and a girl? I'm a respectable girl, now, George. You'd have to marry me."

"I don't really know," I said, laughing and crying at once. "I wouldn't mind marrying you," I said, and found that I meant it. Harum-scarum terrible scamp of a Jo, who understood me like no one else, in my life forever. I liked the idea, very much. "I'd have to go to classes as a girl, I suppose. Outside..." I let my voice trail off. I liked the thought of wearing my bandages every day, even if they hurt when I took them off. Coming home to Jo and her fierce kisses and caresses every night. 

"I don't care which you are," she said, fiercely. "I want to stay with you, too. I don't mind living with Aunty, but I always wanted to be with you lot. Especially you."

"You complete, utter darling." I pulled her down again and hugged her tight. She felt right in my arms, as if she was meant to fit in them, somehow.

I let myself become drowsy, wondering what my family would think of it. Jo wasn't, well, she wasn't really our sort or the kind of friend my family have, when it came down to it, but there was no use being a snob about it, and Mother liked her and was grateful to her. After all, she had saved my life. Father, well, he doesn't approve of anyone, much, unless they are a brilliant scientist, but he was so overjoyed that a child of his was following in his scientific footsteps that it wouldn't occur to him to mind that I was sharing rooms with the cook's cousin's foster daughter, even if said daughter had been born in a circus caravan. He'd discover Jo had no knowledge of physics or chemistry and dismiss her from his mind. That's the good thing about Father, he doesn't care about anything, much, as long as you don’t make too much noise or get underfoot.

My cousins... my cousins, I decided, would be happy. They were terribly fond of Jo. Dick in particular would be sickeningly pleased that I was being so kind to poor little Jo. Being kind, by selfishly keeping her in my life and my bed... It was funny, really.

I wondered whether, when Jo and I were fifty and still both old maids, the others would eventually realise why I was so keen to live with her. I grinned to myself. I'd settled our futures at eighteen, after taking Jo to the cinema once. But, then, Jo had been the one to mention marriage. And we were both respectable girls. When I was being a girl, at least.

There was a noise downstairs, and Jo stirred. "There's Aunty back," she said, sleepily. 

"Oh!"

"Don't be a fraidy cat. Come and put on your clothes and say good evening. She knows all about you, after all." Jo bit my ear, playfully. "Best leave off the bandages, and I reckon she'll think we were just having a nice talk about being kids together. There are advantages to being a girl sometimes, you know."

"I suppose you're right," I said, pushing myself up and starting to collect my fallen garments.

We dressed in silence for a while, and then she turned to me, grinning.

"George?"

"Mmm?"

"You're as good as a boy, too." And without another word, she slipped out of the room and downstairs, calling to her foster mother.

I stared after her for a moment, helplessly, then gave up and followed Jo downstairs. It occurred to me that the rest of my life might not exactly go my own way.

**Author's Note:**

> I've gone with theory that each Famous Five book takes place over a single school holiday, starting in 1942 and finishing in 1948 after Julian's final term at school. When George and Jo meet in "Five Fall Into Adventure" they would have been thirteen, and the majority of this story takes place in 1949, when George would be, by this reckoning, just 18.
> 
> Some of the dialogue in the 1943 flashback is by Blyton, not me. :)


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